Hate Speech Not Criminal, Say Experts

April 06, 1990|By ASHLEA BALL EBELING Staff Writer

WILLIAMSBURG — Treating religious, racial and sexual slurs as crimes when they inflict emotional damage would be unconstitutional, according to speakers at a symposium on hate speech at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law Thursday night.

An audience of nearly 200 law students posing as legislators in a mock state voted unanimously against an imaginary statute that would make such speech illegal, after hearing arguments from four visiting law professors.

"These attempts to curtail speech will erode our freedom and leave it to decision makers to put us in jail for saying things they consider offensive," said Anthony D'Amato, professor of law at Northwestern University.

The speakers met at the Seventh Annual Bill of Rights Symposium sponsored by the Institute of Bill of Rights Law at The College of William and Mary.

Randall L. Kennedy, professor of law at Harvard University, expressed doubts as to the factual basis for the proposed statute, namely the prevalence of hate speech and the feeling that it is on the rise. "Maybe it's not a problem but a sign that we're far more attuned to such verbal assaults," he said.

He also asked the mock legislators to consider where they would draw the line with such a statute. Would a fundamental Christian who attacks homosexuality for being ungodly or a rap artist who sings anti-Semitic, anti-white or misogynist lyrics be a criminal, he asked.

The statute is plainly unconstitutional, said Robert C. Post, professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley. Supreme Court opinions have declared that even speech that causes emotional distress cannot be regulated for that, he said.

Yet most countries, including Canada and England, have such statutes. And they cite "powerful reasons," such as the pain, harm and social disruption hate speech causes, for enacting the proposed statute, Post said.

Toni M. Massaro also gave defenses for the statute, including the argument that it is a way of working out the claim of equality the constitution promises. But personally, she rejects the statute as going too far. Lacking a clear cultural consensus on the issues at stake, "we should remain extremely reluctant to demand that all people comport themselves in a certain way," she said.

Before the debates began, Timothy Sullivan, dean of the law school, presented the first Institute Distinguished Public Service Award to Mary V. Bicouvaris.

She has "translated the Bill of Rights into programs and lessons that touch the students' intellect and their hearts," he said.

Bicouvaris teaches government and international relations at Bethel High School in Hampton and was named the 1989 National Teacher of the Year.

The symposium continues at 10:30 a.m. today with a work shop analyzing the sources of racial, sexual and religious friction and strategies for raising tolerance.